Death's GambitReview

It could have been a beautiful combination. Like butter on popcorn, pouring Castlevania: Symphony of the Night-inspired pixel art over the demanding gameplay of a "Soulslike" feels like a combination that should lead fans of both to fall in love. Unfortunately, Death's Gambit's performance fails to fully realize its buttery premise. Though this 2D action game achieves a neat horror vibe and features some cool art, it can become confusing and frustrating – and not in the rewarding ways that make games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne fun.

It doesn’t help Death’s Gambit’s predicament that we are in the middle of a whirlwind renaissance for 2D “Metroidvania” games. Some of them, including Hollow Knight (which was released last year but has re-entered the zeitgeist thanks to its recent re-release on the Nintendo Switch) and the near-universally beloved Dead Cells have also taken cues from Dark Souls without coming off as imitations. And, sadly, their successes highlight Death’s Gambit’s failures.

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Death’s Gambit draws you in with a mysterious gothic horror-esque yarn about Sorun, an undead knight revived by the grim reaper following a failed expedition to Siradon, a land ravaged by immortal monsters and their armies. Death brings Sorun back for a single purpose: He will not die so long as he seeks to destroy the source of the immortal beings' power, restoring the balance of life and death to the world. Though it never goes anywhere you wouldn’t expect, the storytelling found a way of getting under my skin.

Perhaps that’s because, like the Souls series and its ilk, there’s much more to the story for those who wish to see it. Thankfully, it’s much easier to put the pieces together here thanks to frequent breaks for dialogue and interactive storytelling sequences that are used to great effect. Many come to you without warning as “dreams” between deaths. Sometimes they are clearly flashbacks, showing Sorun’s childhood to deepen your understanding of the character. Other times it’s unclear whether you’re seeing events taking place elsewhere or even possibly the future. Though it isn’t especially hard to piece together the broader story, it cultivates an air of mystery and stirred a generally dreadful feeling as I explored Siradon. That vague horror vibe is Death’s Gambit’s best attribute, by far.

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Symphony of the Night is the game that put the “-vania” in “Metroidvania.”

Enhancing that atmosphere, Death’s Gambit relies on a pixelated 32-bit aesthetic clearly meant to specifically evoke Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, a classic of that era and a definitive work in the genre — it’s the game that put the “-vania” in “Metroidvania.” Though you can see every pixel, the characters, enemies, and landscapes of Death’s Gambit carry a remarkable amount of detail, bringing to life a world in ruin.

Some aspects of that world feel more fully formed than others, though. While the enemy designs, especially the many over-the-top bosses, feel well-defined and can send your imagination soaring at a glance, other elements, such as the levels, lack nuance. There's plenty of technical detail, but little touches like ornate stone doors and bloody thrones aren't enough to make the world's clearly delineated zones feel like more than generic castles and caves.

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Speaking of the level design, Siradon is a strange and not especially well-built video game world. The plot pushes you through it in an almost linear fashion, aside from frequent opportunities to veer off to new, seemingly optional areas with new places to see and bosses to fight. Unfortunately, Death’s Gambit does not tell you that most of these areas are actually mandatory: Failing to take certain paths will leave you without essential tools you’ll need to keep up with the steady increase in difficulty, such as the ability to upgrade weapons and armor. The issue came to a head in a late-game story turn when I was left with absolutely no idea what to do and found myself retracing my steps until I found that I was supposed to go to an area I previously believed to be optional because it had no direct connection to the story.

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Worse than Death’s Gambit’s navigation issues are its pacing and lack of direction.

Worse than Death’s Gambit’s navigation issues are its pacing and lack of direction. The difficulty of each area (and a menu that lists most of the bosses) implies that you’re meant to tackle in a specific order that is never properly telegraphed. More than once, I found myself rattled when a giant difficulty spike hit me like a proverbial brick wall. It wasn't until very late in the campaign when I realized that, often, I was probably meant to venture off to a completely different area and cut my teeth on an easier boss or two. The problem was, Death’s Gambit pointed me directly at the more difficult challenge and stuck the "on-ramp" boss far out of the way, making the “correct” path the less intuitive one.

(Mis)timing is Everything

Though its art and winding tunnel-like rooms clearly bring Castlevania to mind, Death’s Gambit cribs the vast majority of its gameplay ideas from Dark Souls. Sorun's actions, from attacks to blocking and dodging, are limited by a short endurance meter, which makes cautious, conscientious combat the rule.

Sadly, especially for a game that requires precise combat, Death’s Gambit’s feels technically sloppy. I found my attacks frequently hampered by missed controller inputs, making it hard to complete combos or precisely time strikes and dodges. I found my strategic flurries of attacks devolved to mashing as I pressed extra times to make sure my combos went through, which in turn led me to use up all my stamina and leave myself exposed to an enemy attack. Precise games require you to trust in reliable and precise controls; Death's Gambit never earned that trust.

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It doesn't help that Sorun's progression lacks a way to upgrade your defense, and doesn't allow you to expand your stamina meter by more than a trickle. Though grinding for shards will inevitably make Sorun stronger, that strength won't make getting past a tough fight any easier. Some may see that as a boon — evidence that winning takes skill, not time — but that isn't really true. I ran into multiple boss fights where, even upon "mastering" AI patterns and figuring out what needed to be done, I had to go back and power up because the fights were all but impossible if Sorun couldn’t do enough damage and win within a certain amount of time. Though some elite players out there may be able to achieve a “perfect boss run” in time, Death’s Gambit could do more to let us mere mortals give ourselves a little leeway if we want it.

When you defeat enemies, you earn shards instead of souls, but they are similarly used to either enhance individual statistics and level up, or as currency with sparsely placed shopkeepers. It's a good system, and easy to pick up even if you aren't familiar with it from other games. Plus, unlike Dark Souls, Sorun’s statistics are clearly explained, so you never have to worry about upgrading a mystery stats (or failing to upgrade one that turns out to be important).

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It's an interesting risk-and-reward system that tests your aggressive playstyle.

Instead of a healing flask, he carries Phoenix Plumes which he can use to heal himself a limited number of times, and only regenerate when stops to rest at a statue of Death. Phoenix Plumes do have a little more versatility in Death’s Gambit and play a more important role. If you're willing to limit your healing capacity you can temporarily sacrifice some of your Phoenix Plumes at Death's shrines to make yourself stronger. It's an interesting risk-and-reward system that tests your aggressive playstyle by forcing you to gamble with your health, and hamstrings conservative playstyles – if you refuse to give up healing potions you’ll enter the fray less powerful than you could or perhaps should be.

Building on this, your penalty for dying is temporarily losing a Phoenix Plume. When Sorun dies, he returns to the last Death Shrine he used and leaves a Phoenix Plume behind at the spot of his death. Though you can do a corpse run to the spot where you died to get it back, you can also pay some shards — it's generally about the same amount as your next stat upgrade — to automatically retrieve them. There is no way to lose a shard forever, but each time you die without picking up your lost Plume you drop another, putting you at an even greater disadvantage. Again, it's risk and reward: Do you tough it out and fight your way back to your healing items, even as you grow weaker? Or do you sacrifice your level-up potential to make yourself whole again? I like this system better than dropping your experience/money when you die, as is tradition, because it forces you to choose whether or not give up your shards. Trust me: spending shards to regain plumes can feel more like a defeat than failing to retrieve your shards/souls.

The Verdict

Death’s Gambit is a very blunt attempt to fuse two beloved games, Dark Souls and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, into one challenging 2D action-platformer. Developer White Rabbit shows a strong understanding of what made each of them great but glosses over fundamentals that all great games need, such as responsive controls and an understandable game world, and falls short of its promise.